‘After constantly warning my family not to fall for scams I feel so stupid to have done it myself – but it’s rife at the moment’
A Coldplay fan in Hull is warning people to be alert to ticket scammers after being duped out of £170 for two supposed gig tickets. Hull is now on countdown to what is arguably the biggest music event of the year in the city, when one of the globe’s biggest bands Coldplay take to the stage over two nights.
The Viva La Vida singers will enthral thousands at the Sewell Group Craven Park next Monday and Tuesday nights, at gigs which also mark 25 years since they released their debut album, Parachutes. The concerts – the largest events to take centre stage at Sewell Group Craven Park since The Who blasted in the region in 2023 – will see around 25,000 fans descend on the rugby league stadium to see the band perform. All tickets for the Coldplay concerts are completely sold out, with official sites Ticketmaster, Gigsandtours, See Tickets and AXS saying no more tickets are available.
Yet seemingly genuine touts and individuals are continuing to target fans desperate to get into the two-night extravaganza – complete with Kiss Cam as we have previously reported. A fan, who doesn’t wish to be named, contacted us after being scammed out of £170, urging us to warn other fans to be on their guard.
The fan said: “I got scammed this morning out of £170 for two supposed Coldplay tickets. It all looked really genuine with a local profile, although I suppose it was probably a hacked account.
“Basically once I sent the money they said the tickets were part of four and they were struggling to split them on Ticketmaster transfer. They even sent me a screen shot of the tickets. Once I started to twig I had been scammed they deleted the profile. It’s all been reported to Humberside Police and my bank.
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“Thankfully the bank were really understanding – I had to pay a £100 excess but they’ve refunded £70 and they will try to recover the remaining £100. They said lots of it is happening at the moment across social media.
“I am usually so vigilant, and I’m always warning my family to be careful about scams so I can’t believe I fell for one myself. But it all looked so genuine. I went through the Facebook profile, which showed lots of local detail and friends – but then that person’s account was probably hacked. The bank details I was given showed as a genuine business account.
“I think I just got caught up in it. I also spoke to the police and they said they are getting lots of it at the moment. So did the bank. They said Coldplay tickets are leading to reports from all over social media, it’s absolutely rife.”
Aside from individuals claiming to have spare tickets they’re looking to offload, Coldplay themselves have previously warned that ticket sites claiming to sell newly-released tickets for the shows are likely to be fake. The scammer that targeted the Hull fan put an innocent-looking post on Facebook highlight two tickets they had for sale, at face value.
They used Facebook with a profile claiming to be from Hull, highlighting two seated tickets, asking for £85 for each ticket. They said they were e-tickets that could be transferred to someone with a Ticketmaster account, then asked for the cash to be sent via banks transfer to a business account.
As soon as the money was received, however, the seller claimed they had tried to send the tickets several times, but that they couldn’t send them, claiming they were part of a batch of four tickets that had to be sold together. They then asked the fan to buy the other two, claiming the transfer could then be made, offering a discount on the remaining pair. When the fan refused, the supposed seller offers to refund the money – at which point all contact ceased.
The fan added: “I’d be grateful if you can just make people aware when posting anything Coldplay related – in the run up to the two concerts I bet a lot of people will be trying to get tickets however they can, and that means that these touts will be all over social media trying to con people out of money.”